Do not miss Matt Continetti’s absolutely superb and essential analysis of what makes Obama tick. You’ll find it here. The following paragraph appears towards the end of his essay:
The Obama coalition, piece by piece, has been disassembled. All that remains is the antiwar, anti-Republican core of the Democratic Party. There are more registered Democrats than Republicans, so Obama could still squeak out a second term. But he has forsaken independents and whites, the groups that swung to him definitively and significantly in 2008. He is losing independents, in some polls by double-digits. His opponent Mitt Romney is “winning the white vote by more than any GOP candidate since Ronald Reagan,” according to the Washington Post. If the 2012 electorate resembles the 2008 one, it is possible for Obama to win reelection. But if the electorate turns out to be more like the electorate in 2004 or, God help him, like in 2010, Obama will lose.
So if you want to know a brief history of Obama, who as Continetti writes is unmasked “not as a Kenyan Marxist, but as a thoroughly typical liberal Democrat who believes there is no trouble in the world not created by George W. Bush,” read his entire article. And make sure you pass it on to your liberal and leftist friends!
I’m not so sure.
Obama once defined himself as a “blank screen” onto which others project their hopes and aspirations. The Democrat “base” might be gullible enough to have swallowed his vacuous 2008 campaign rhetoric, but the kingmakers and money men who guide the Democrat Party aren’t quite that credulous. They would not have adopted him as their standard-bearer under the supposition that he merely embodies the anti-Bush convictions of which Mr. Continetti writes. They had to be able to see him as a vehicle for their aspirations, which are poles away from those of the “base.”
In many ways, Obama fulfilled those aspirations with his administration’s “stimulus” and “bailout” programs, its aggressively partisan Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services, and its flagrantly anti-domestic-energy Environmental Protection Agency.
Consider: It’s an open secret (don’t tell the Democrat “base”) that Big Business is aligned with the Democrats as the more reliably statist of the two parties. This might sound counter-intuitive to some, yet it is so: every business has an optimum size, and the overwhelming majority of the Fortune 1000 are well beyond that size. To compensate for their overgrowth, such firms need the support of the State: as a customer, as a competition-smothering regulator, and as a reliable safety net when all else fails. Obama’s open-handedness toward his large corporate backers was only partially concealed by moves such as his voracious attitude toward British Petroleum; anyone who’d been watching closely up to then knew it was an opportunistic play to position himself as “the friend of the little guy.”
In gauging success or failure — of anything — one must remember to apply the proper standard:
Q: Was Obama a failure as president?
A: By whose standard? What did that person or organization want from the Obama Administration? Did he get it — and at what cost?
Though the average private American citizen might disagree, the unions, the more extreme environmentalists, the Saudis, the largest banks, and a lot of other really big corporations consider Obama a roaring success. Food for thought.
In other words, the average American has only a choice between the lesser of two evils. We’re forced to choose the candidate/party that will do the least harm. Not much of a choice.
“Not much of a choice”!
Bingo! The trap snaps shut. That’s exactly the conclusion which the “Kingmakers and Moneymen” would like you to reach. Once you do, you become more easily persuaded to “go with the flow”, and take part in and “enjoy” helpings from their large buffet of “handouts”, all “free”, of course.
You DO have a choice: True Conservatism along the small and Constitutional Government, line. That will require some effort, and will take a lot of time, but any choice that moves you more in that direction is a plus.
In this election-cycle, that would be Romney/Ryan. Even if you think they are merely the lesser of two evils, the obverse is true as well: the other side is the (much) greater evil, and to be avoided.
Even if you end up with fewer “freebies”, remember there’s not really any such thing. The “freebies” are the bait for their trap, to make you forget how you got into it, your resignation. Don’t fall for it.
But the most important part of the story is the gradual unmasking of Obama—not as a Kenyan Marxist, but as a thoroughly typical liberal Democrat who believes there is no trouble in the world not created by George W. Bush.
I read the article, but frankly, I think that today’s “thoroughly typical liberal Democrat” is virtually indistinguishable from a Marxist.
I’m not used to fairy tales and magic spice coming from PJMedia. Who are you trying to kid? …unmasked “not as a Kenyan marxist…” My biggest hope is that there are still some “typical liberal democrats” out there that are not only humiliated by this Kenyan marxist, but also genuinely concerned about the devastation and chaos he has wrought upon the land and care enough about America that they will set aside their rigid ideology and do the right thing for the country. Sorry guys, but this is too serious a subject to lampoon or disregard the very serious issues concerning Barak Hussein Obama.
He is not just someone with a different opinion but still loves his country and wants to see America prosper. He is evil and corrupt; more and more information is coming out every day since he ‘removed the mask’.